What is the difference between an prisoner of war and an enemy combatant?

Question

What is the difference between an prisoner of war and an enemy combatant?

Answer 1

One's locked up (prisoner of war), and other is free and fighting (enemy combatant).

Answer 2

There seems to be a difference in the way that they are treated and the rights they have under the Geneva Convention.  Enemy Combatant seems to be a term used for non-affiliated terrorists.  They are not granted the same status as a soldier representing a foreign government.  Simply put, it is a slipperly slope; if we surrender our values for expediency in the situation, we may find ourselves giving up more than we intended or desired, in the name of safety.  (Example: torture)

Answer 3

An enemy combatant as currently defined in the US is basically a person who acts as an enemy soldier without the use of a uniform or other obvious ties to an official military entity.

The basic idea was originally applied to a spy.

Currently it is being used to describe members of foreign "resistance" forces who lack any "official military status".  It allows for the skirting of all Geneva Conventions although that has not really been fully tested under the current application of the term.

This is from a 1942 (World War II era) Supreme Court Definition of "Enemy Combatants" (the term at the time was "Unlawful Combatant"):

Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.

The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.